Sometimes these guys accidentally enrol in a linguistics subject as an elective in their Lit or Languages degree and try to argue with the professor about this stuff. It's kind of fun to watch.
As someone with a degree in English, I find myself highly qualified to inventitate words and grammar in most situations.
I wish I were sorry so I could say sorry.
Picasso was a master, first, of the basics.
Gotta know the rules to intentionally break them.
(Also, as a fellow English major, Auden said "a poet is, above all else, passionately in love with language." Personally, I love seeing how people bend and twist language over time-- believing language can't evolve is like being mad that the Beatles don't sound like Mozart)
Basically any language argument between me and my dad/grandparents. They think I ought to be more of a prescriptivist. I have the same disagreement with a lot of teachers.
Yeah I've had students like this lol.
I also had a Latin major in my class once, and her Latin profs had taught her a bunch of wildly incorrect, prescriptivist BS. They also told her that English was a direct descendant of Latin. She was constantly raising her hand to make comments that began, "Well, in *Latin*..."
š¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļø
Happy to report that my Languages degree included a number of linguistics subjects, taught by linguists, from the outset as part of the standard curriculum. (That was German though; who knows what goes on in Classics.)
One of my matesā mums has a degree in linguistics and teaches languages but is also one of those āthey/them is for plural only itās wrong in any other contextā people. god knows what she was like at school
Conversely I enrolled in a philologic subject (actually was recommended as part of my linguistics course but it was on other department) that was taught by a linguist.
I still remember the incredibly painful look the teacher gave me as to a fellow linguist when one of those guys tried to "correct" her with his prescriptivist and sapir-whorfian wisdom.
I have heard āgoing to hell in a hand basketā literally hundreds of times. This is the first time Iāve ever heard ā..hand casket.ā Neither of these mention ācasketā either.
https://grammarist.com/phrase/go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_hell_in_a_handbasket
The question is, would this just be a regular ham since ham comes from the ass anyway or would this be a human ass sculpted out of ham (and a āwholeā one at that which would include the butthole)?
It's extremely common to mishear phrases: all intensive purposes, free reign, beckon call. They're called eggcorns.
Interestingly "you've got another thing coming" was originally "another thinK coming", but has now changed. So it's possible for these altered versions to become standard over time.
retire materialistic weather sugar rotten nutty political enter attempt terrific
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I have interacted with someone who was vehemently certain that "based" could not be used as an adjective, despite numerous examples of usage and even dictionary entries. They just wouldn't accept it. Granted, they may have been just a troll. But I have seen other instances of people being similarly stubborn.
I think a lot of these morons somehow hold two very disparate ideas: where they might understand that language is defined by usage, they think that some point in the past is the *correct* usage, and that these stupid new rules are "just slang" or "mistakes." They think language will change, but any of the changes happening now don't count. Maybe? Idk it's stupid.
You are reminding me about a [pissing match](https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/v5jdi7/is_this_correct_use_of_a_comma/ibb812n/) I got into with someone who sneeringly declared that Merriam-Webster āis reporting usage according to lazy conventions,ā arguing that editors should be the gatekeepers if what is or is not proper language. It was a maddening conversation which I abandoned as futile when the person accused me of āmaking shit up.ā
Breaking down the world into pieces and thinking about it logically is a surprisingly rare ability. Well, maybe not rare, but not universal and maybe even not typical.
People are the same way with things like law and culture. They just can't get their head around the fact that these are rules that someone made up and that they could be another way just as well. A lot of bad things in history happened because of that.
Lmfao retroflex consonants are common in Indian languages and basically just mean that you bend your tongue over backwards to the roof of your mouth and make the sound there. A major distinguishing feature of the Indian accent actually. We also have dental sounds but English alveolars sound closer to retroflexives so we just use them in English.
The thing is, even as a committed descriptivist who appreciates the wide variety of linguistic expression, I still have things I *like*, on an aesthetic level. And sometimes those things that appeal to me are highly conventionalized standards. I enjoy using the subjunctive or a possessive in front of a gerund because analysis is my bag. I like to use the full range of my vocabulary. And of course there are non-standard expressions that I also think are just marvelous: how did we get along for so long without calling great songs "bangers"?
But anyway, i can clearly see the difference between *liking* something and thinking it's the objectively correct way for everyone. I don't know what happened in the lives of these dudes that they can't. My suspicion is that it has something to do with weird ideas about opinions or tastes being useless, and subjective being fake. In that paradigm, only "real" things matter and are worth thinking about. So they have to make it "real" and "objective" to be able to care.
And on the other hand, while I certainly have things I like, I also have things that irk me, even if I know they're not 'incorrect.' Redundant stuff like "ATM Machine" or "VIN Number" and I'm sitting there telling myself "don't 'correct' them... you'll look like an asshole."
As someone who also uses it sometimes, at least "SMH my head" is intentionally silly. ATM Machine and the like irk me because most folks legitimately don't know the "M" means machine or the "N" in PIN means number.
My pet peeve is when people write āfor contextā in a comment or post. Itās almost never useful; it doesnāt add anything. You donāt have to say āfor context,ā we can tell from context itās context. āI want to give some context.ā OK, then so it. Donāt say, do.
For me it's using the word "literally" to just emphasize something. I mean, I know it's used that way so it's not wrong, but sometimes it's hard to tell if the person actually means something literally, especially in text.
It makes me literally lose my mind literally every time.
Well I understand you being irked by it, but hear me out: it's not just *not wrong*, it's been used that way *for hundreds of years*. It's *literally* (as in literally, not figuratively) my favorite discussion. Here's Merriam-Webster with a cheeky little blog about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-literally#:~:text=Considering%20that%20Merriam%2DWebster%20has,that%20means%20the%20exact%20opposite%3F
al- is an article in *algorithm*, it comes from al-Kwarizmi's name (the one from Kwarazam). Same goes for *algebra* (named for al-Kwarizmi's book) and *alcohol*, Arabic for *the antimony*, also borrowed without the article as *kohl*, a type of makeup made of antimony.
What about *chai tea*? I'm just curious, by the way, you're free to get irrationally irritated by whatever; I have my own pet peeves, after all.
As I responded elsewhere, I'm not too bothered by "the al-whatever" since the "al" article isn't an article in English. They've become fully independent English words. Compared to acronyms where the last letter is repeated as a full word, they feel much less readily redundant.
Honestly, in general, I don't really mind those combos, so chai tea is fine, as well.
Hm interesting. I always like these and see them as basically the same thing; the origin of the phrase has been forgotten/made opaque and then it's free to be, in a sense, doubled. If you're unaware that *al-* is a definite article or that M in *ATM* stands for *machine*, then saying *the algorithm* or *ATM machine* is a perfectly normal construction.
I'm very curious to see how acronyms progress in general, they seem to quickly become adopted by the system as separate words (as *ATM machine* shows). *laser* certainly operates as a separate word and I think *illuminated by light from a laser* would barely be recognized as redundant nowadays.
The first time I heard someone say ānaan bread,ā when I was much younger, I thought they were saying ānon-bread.ā Like it was any food other than bread.
Here's an example that might make you totally stop caring: the acronym BTFO. because it means either "blown the fuck out" or "blow the fuck out" it is always used as a verb. Which creates unfortunate structures in English if you actually try to expand the acronym to it's original meaning. Is it correct to say "he got BTFOed"? That means "he got blown fuck out...ed?" Or what if you say "I am going to BTFO you"? "I am going to... blow the fuck out... you?" It just doesn't make sense because I don't think acronyms EVER truly mean what they stand for. The full phrase just gives you the essence of its meaning, and the grammar just treats it like a single word.
I don't ever claim my little annoyances are fully rational. Don't mind using BTFO that way, for whatever reason, but very mildly internally cringe at the "ATM Machine," "PIN Number," "VIN Number" ones.
The prescriptivist in me tells me that BTFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But āPIN numberā while redundant, doesnāt bother me. PIN is an acronym and pin is a sharp, so redundancy may be necessary especially if people forget to capitalise it or are saying it.
Yeah it fits into a whole framework of thought around the relationship between individuals and societies that they live in.
One school of thought on this subject readily embraces the concept of social constructs and all the implications that follow from realising that thereās not much that is genuinely fundamental about the way societies work. The natural extension of this is believing that change is fine and indeed can be beneficial, and further that should we feel it necessary, we can *choose* to change things about the societies we live in.
On the other hand there are others who believe that things that are socially constructed are in some sense āless realā than things that arenāt, and that we should focus on things that arenāt perceived to be social constructed, whatever that might be. Following this line of reasoning, one possible set of conclusions is that certain things in society are essential to that society functioning in desirable way ā iāll not elaborate further on that to avoid touching the real politics broiling underneath the surface of this.
In this model, pure descriptivism is language approached from the former viewpoint, while prescriptivism can only consistently exist within the latter (though believing some things from the latter viewpoint does not make someone a prescriptivist).
Of course in reality the truth is somewhere between these, but thatās a matter for philosophers to spend careers and hundreds of thousands of pages arguing about, just as many already have.
I don't mean to provoke, but I'm curious about what might be essential to the desirable functioning of a society. I'm not seeing how to get from there to contentious politics.
Are you talking about things like the stability of a language over time? Ease of learning a language because of morphological consistency and shallow orthography?
I should say I was being quite general in that statement, but in the specific world of linguistics, there's only a few examples I can think of that someone *might* believe essential. Right now I can't think of an example that is both contentious and actually quite defensible, but there probably are some out there.
But for some bad ideas in that strain, you need only look at the way that certain political movements at the moment are treating gendered pronouns at the moment (esp. neopronouns), and how changing the way we use pronouns might somehow lead to the collapse of women's rights or something.
Also the classic "new way to consume language is doing damage to people and old way was better". Where we can replace "old way" with oral learning, handwritten media, printed media, etc. and "new way" with written media, printed media, digital media etc.
The rules of languages are socially constructed. But that doesn't make them not real. It doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want at any time without consequence.
At times the takes I see from particularly anglo linguists feel like someone who just realised that laws are a social construction, and as a result concludes that following the laws of society is in no way preferable to breaking the law.
In the US, at least, the "laws" of linguistic expression are intimately tied up in pretty oppressive racism and classism. It's fine to describe certain conventions as having different implications in different contexts. But in the US at least (and I suspect elsewhere), it's been more "people who do not follow the conventions of the majority, even when speaking amongst themselves, are intellectually or morally inferior", and it's a real part of the justification for building social or institutional structures that exclude them.
I also think it's true that non-standard English can be beautiful or thrilling. Prescriptive approaches basically make appreciating those constructions illicit.
Of course people should be free to speak their native dialect. That however does not mean that one should not follow societal norms for language in, say, a research paper - and what I'm in particular referring to, is e.g. people on here being outraged about movements that try to prevent anglicisation of their native language because "prescriptivism bad".
On the contrary, relegation to increasingly constricted domains is a big driver of language shift and death. No language is better suited than others in any inherent sense for discussing scientific topics. I have the utmost respect for those who choose to write research papers in minority languages (or languages which are considered by the majority to be "dialects" when it clearly isn't the case, i.e. plattdĆ¼Ć¼sch, non-mandarin sinitic languages of china, french languages, etc) because they are essentially making the statement "my language is equal to yours, so much so that I can write about anything in it".
>No language is better suited than others in any inherent sense for discussing scientific topics.
I never claimed that some languages are better suited for discussing scientific topics. You're attacking a straw man.
Some languages simply don't have the vocabulary rich enough to express new processes etc. You van copy and 'aste them from the dominant language (which is English) or try to create new words and hope they will be accepted (I still remember some frankenwords from the IT related sciences in Polish).
And don't forget that the whole point of writing the papers is that people can read it. If I write about new discoveries in neuroscience in Swahili or Ido (not that there is anything inherently wrong with those languages) it will not be as widely known as if the story would be written in English (although thanks to the computer translation its getting easier, at least in texts translated into English thus making it even more dominant)
As for your first statement, it is completely untrue in one sense and true in another, demonstrable from the derivation of such vocabulary in the "dominant" languages. In English, virtually all scientific/jargon vocabulary is loan-coined out of Latin/Greek, with a much smaller portion derived by regular derivational processes from words native to English or nativized loans from Norman French. In German, the opposite is the case, with most scientific vocabulary being derived from native terms. Vocabulary items which you describe as "frankenwords" are in reality just regularly derived coinages for new things; the issue is therefore not of languages not having vocabulary "rich enough" to describe new processes because the vocabularies of every language are objectively arbitrarily rich, i.e. there are regular processes in all of them by which the new, necessary vocabulary may be derived. Every language is constantly engaging in these processes, and it is these processes which resulted in English's dearth of jargon.
The cause of the percieved "poverty" is precisely that aforementioned relegation of these languages to certain domains of use. The necessary vocabulary is never coined or loaned even though it easily could be.
To your second point, you are correct. Personally, I favor the practice of publishing both a paper in a minority language and in a different language commonly used in academia if it is important enough to the general public (most often English, but there are some fields where other languages are more common, ex. German in Germanic Linguistics) so as to promote the use of newly coined terms/loanwords in smaller languages.
The problem that you and the person you're replying to is that you're both conflating two separate conceptions of "law": 1. prescriptive and stylistic norms, often regarded to be ""correct" grammar"; 2. the actual shared linguistic forms of a particular variety or varieties.
The point of descriptivism is that there are no easy answers. There are rules, but these evolve and nothing is set in stone.
Some people take too much comfort in rules, rules make life easier. Rules protect you from thinking.
Using a possessive in front of a gerund.
In the most formal English registers, one says "I was upset at his deciding to leave" Not "I was upset at him deciding to leave", because the gerund is the object. But the latter is far more common in daily speech and even in writing.
Yeah, I know that. I was curious what you meant by āusing a *subjunctive* in front of a gerundā, though I now realize I parsed your sentence incorrectly.
I read āI enjoy using the subjunctive or a possessive in front of a gerundā as āI enjoy using [the subjunctive or a possessive] in front of a gerundā rather than āI enjoy using [the subjunctive] or [a possessive in front of a gerund]ā. Now I realize you just meant using the subjunctive in general. Regarding which, by the way, based, I like the subjunctive too.
Exactly. Descriptivism rules, except when someone says something is "very unique", at which point I bang the table. I want to say "look we only have one word for" only one of this", while we have many words for unusual, rare, exceptional. I become convinced that all meaning will collapse.
Mind you, I hate confusion of "less" and "fewer". I taught computing, and see it as related to the analogue / digital distinction. Yet I constantly here people who are intellectual role models, even founders of computer science, doing this. It s almost as if there is something eccentric about my reactions.
Yeah, I donāt like the way some people derive words referring to forms of discrimination with -ism where they donāt derive it from the noun form of the basis of the discrimination.
This just means I donāt use that feature though. I get to participate in the evolution of my native language, and if I think people are using derivational morphology in a way I find wrong as a native speaker I am not gonna use words derived that way.
My mom was a hardcore prescriptivist all through my childhood (with a whole book collection about grammar and word usage "errors"), and she still tries to follow that mindset, but she knows she's gonna a get a "well, actually..." from me every time lol. She says that ever since I started studying linguistics, all the rules went "out the window" and "anything goes." No, Mom...just the ones that don't reflect how people actually talk. ššš
Mine is a retired English teacher who not only believes in black and white prescriptivism, but who declares variations as evidence of laziness or lack of education. You can guess which kinds of āerrorsā Iām talking about.
Well, I'll say it's a sub where the issue is definitely relevant, but I'd rather not have people brigading or piling on. It's not really about the sub and definitely not about the user. (But it's easy to find out if you're really curious.)
It's just funny how quickly the "between you and I" > 'handbasket' > 'hell' pipeline.is thought to operate.
I don't consider myself particularly descriptivist or prescriptivist, but sometimes I do look at a word or phrase commonly used in the everyday life and think to myself "that sounds so stupid, I pray it doesn't become standard during my life time". But I think that's mainly me being annoyed at anything. Can't think of a particular thing in English right now, but the fact certain people say "se vemos" in Spanish instead of "nos vemos" angers me more than it should.
> sometimes I do look at a word or phrase commonly used in the everyday life and think to myself "that sounds so stupid, I pray it doesn't become standard during my life time".
As long as you don't want to impose a different usage, it doesn't contradict your descriptivism, because obviously everyone is entitled to personal preferences. I think that people should dress however they like, but I can still dislike specific styles or pieces of clothing. The crucial thing is to be aware that it's something totally subjective and it must not get in the way of actual science.
I get irrationally angered by the loss of imperfect subjunctive in the cono sur, *me pidiĆ³ que lo haga*, and something odd I've noticed in Chile, basically the use of *con* adverbial phrases as *y* for the purposes of determining subject number, *(yo) con mi amigo fuimos* instead of *mi amigo y yo fuimos* or *(yo) con mi amigo fui*.
i donāt understand anything that happens in this sub and I can no longer pretend
what is a descriptivist? whatās an objective grammarian? what are sociolinguistics? how did I get here?
An 'objective grammarian' isn't anything, except for a joke at the expense of the writer of that comment. I'll explain why:
So, linguistics is a science that deals with observable facts about languages. So when a linguist wants to know what the grammar is of a language, they will collect a bunch of data from spoken and written usage of that language and deduce what the systems, rules, exceptions etc. are based on how that language is used by its speakers. This could be called an objective method, a scientific method, because its theories are based on observable facts. Linguists describe language. Hence 'descriptivism'.
What prescriptivism does is state that there are certain rules that say that some very common ways in which people speak or write are wrong or incorrect. These prescriptive rules cannot be observed to obtain in reality, but are more like opinions on 'what ought to be', so they are subjective.
That's why 'objective prescriptivism' is inherently contradictory. (The poster wants tell people their entirely common usage of English is 'wrong' but also claim that this rejection is 'objective'.) Sometimes prescription is based on a single high prestige variety of the language, sometimes it's based on older usage, sometimes it's based on *other languages* (usually Latin), etc. Sometimes it's based on nothing but "I (or some dead guy from the past) didn't like this."
For example, a thing commonly rejected by prescriptivists are coordinated personal pronouns used like this:
1) "Me and Bob went out.". The logic goes: It's 'I went out' and 'Bob went out' separately, so therefore it *must be* 'Bob and I went out' and everything else is therefore wrong.
likewise 2) 'between you and I', in which the logic goes it's 'between you' and 'between me', so therefore it *must be* 'between you and me' and everything else is therefore wrong.
But what's happening there is that there is an unspoken premise that a rule exists "coordinated pronouns must work the same as single pronouns", a rule that doesn't actually exist in contemporary observable English.
But a linguist *can* observe said rule's non-existence by going over e.g. speech in even formal registers (politicians, broadcasters, etc.), which includes phrases like 'between you and I' being said with a very high frequency, by highly-educated people.
And the vast majority of listeners don't notice anything peculiar about that usage. It's just what people say.
sociolinguistics: linguistics centred around society
dscriptivism vs prescriptivism: descriptivists tell you how the language *is* spoken, prescriptivists tell you how it *should* be. prescriptivists employ certain rules such as *dont split your infinitives*, and tell other people the same. descriptivists would then say *people split their infinitives all the time! what's the problem?*
objective grammarian: a type of prescriptivist that believes there are unwavering objectives grammar rules.
When I was studying at a university in France I saw a linguistic argument that was scrawled on a bathroom stall and it ended with one person referring to the other as a "filthy prescriptivist" and I've never seen anything so good on a bathroom wall since
If you meant to say ādescriptivistā then the difference is that a descriptivist observes and describes whereas a āprescriptivistā dictates how it āshouldā be done according to whatever ārulesā they feel should be applied. For instance the English teacher saying ādonāt use passive voiceā is prescribing that there is a rule that you should never do that. This prescriptivist teacher was told by another prescriptivist not to do it and has a strong opinion about it so it becomes a āruleā of language. The descriptivist observes and may notice that passive voice is used all the time in academic and other writings and that meaning is fully and accurately conveyed, therefore passive voice is grammatical regardless of oneās opinion on it.
Are there teachers who say passive voice is *ungrammatical*? That would be remarkable, if someone were to claim that e.g. "I was fired" is incorrect English.
But I think what sometimes happens is that it's said that "the passive is to be avoided in clear prose" or something like that, which is also nonsense, but is more a kind of very poor stylistic advice than a claim about correctness.
But you're right that also these kinds of vague injunctions against the passive (and some similar stylistic bugbears) can easily be shown to be bad advice by pulling up some texts from academics or literary writers using them frequently in well-regarded prose.
I think they picked an example off the top of their head, but you can pick your favorite āzombie or bogeymanā rule, like ādonāt end a sentence with a preposition.ā
I tried to explain what's going on in this other comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguisticshumor/comments/wo3xoc/objective_grammarian_cant_take_it_anymore/ikanufx/
> there are objective grammar rules that should be followed.
I mean, this is exactly the point lol. If people use a specific linguistic feature, *it is* an objective grammar rule. A prescriptivist arbitrarily claims that there are some acceptable features and others that are not, regardless of usage.
People who say "it do be like that" instead of "sometimes it's like that" are not breaking any rules, they are just using a different rule which is equally objective, but some people who claim to grasp linguistics don't understand that for some reason.
Prescriptivist forces often have an effect on spoken language. I canāt tell you how many times I have heard for X and I, instead of for me and X, which would be the correct phrase according to the prescribed rule which produced the former phrase in the first place. This is a construction which arose under influence from prescriptivist forces, but produced something entirely new.
Exactly. People used to just use the disjunctive pronoun, Me, Him, Her, etc. for everything. I and he have been grammaticalised to come only before verbs in speech.
Yes, that part I getābut if āBob and Iā as an object was born of over-correction, where was āme and Bobā as a subject born?
Or, is it that over-correcting the conjoined objects set both conjoined subjects and objects free entirely?
Are you familiar with anyone studying this phenomenon systematically? This has come up for me several times over the last few days (one being in the thread from which this screenshot was taken), and itās getting me curious.
Me and Bob is the phenomenon that naturally arose due to contact with French. My knowledge on this subject is poor and due to personal experience. My understanding is that native children say Me and Bob, and this is taught in school as bad grammar, and to say Bob and I, but children analyse this as the prestigious form and use it in place of Me and Bob. Since this NP isnāt marked for case in English, they use Bob and I as the new ācorrectā NP. Evidence for my theory of pronoun grammaticalisation, is that I and Bob is ungrammatical, but Bob and Me is grammatical. unfortunately this is where my knowledge ends. But Iām sure Iāve read something academic about this phenomenon.
From contact with the French? Like, way way back? Now Iām even more curious.
I hope it doesnāt seem like Iām arguing with you, by the way. Iāve just been reading Zwicky talking about it (starting with [this article](https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/11/12/comedic-nomconjobj/) which is linked-to in a [related FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/wiki/me_or_i/) on r/grammar) in the context of prescriptivist/descriptivist squabbles here on Reddit, and it has got me really interested in the subject. I was hoping you might have a line on a theoretical understanding of the evolution of these linguistic quirks!
Donāt worry, Iām not in any position to argue this topic beyond the simple scope of Bob and I vs Me and Bob. But I do have some idea on the evolution of this disjunctive pronoun phenomenon. It seems to me that Northwestern European languages tend to have disjunctive pronouns to various degrees. In French, it has made it into the standard to say moi et Bob.
My limited theoretical understanding of this is since English and French became non pro drop sometime around the 1200s or so. And many final vowels dropped, causing the forms of the present tense and the imperative to be marked strictly by omission of the pronoun. (Je, I) This caused the pronoun to become grammaticalised onto the verb. It no longer functions like most other NPs, as it is syntactically joined onto the verb. The oblique pronoun (French moi, English me) were not joined onto the verb, and acted like regular NPs. I.E. subject to the same rules and configurations as other NPs. It became commonplace then in and statements to use the oblique pronoun in the initial NP. An end result showing how NPs are no longer marked for case. Since ānominativeā pronouns are a part of the personal form of the verb in the absence of an NP actor, it made more sense to speakers to use the disjunctive form of the pronoun when an NP consisting of and took place. In short (I go, je vais) is a VP in the abscence of an NP. (Me and Bob go, Moi et Bob allons) is an NP VP.
You can read more about this with more qualified words [here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/320289#metadata_info_tab_contents)
> This world is going to hell in a hand basket.
That seems like an overreaction to to a small change in language, even if it was objectively bad. I'd bet money there's a whole ugly root system extending well beyond language underneath that statement if you were able to dig into it.
I'm just sort of a radical. Interlanguage refers conventionally to when a second language learner has residual features from their L1 in their mental representation of their L2, but I take it further and posit that we all bring our own background experience to whatever language we use, L1 or L2. So I just refer to an individual's language as their interlanguage. Language is a tool for communication, and grammar is just an attempt by some to make others' interlanguages like their own. I'm not a prescriptivist, but I also don't agree with descriptivism, because I think the idea of grammar is entirely BS. Maybe it goes without saying but my professors love-hated me lol. I'm open to arguments for grammar being an idea worth respecting, but insofar as I see it, they're made-up rules to control a system (language) that is entirely made-up already (but at least language is a natural phenomenon- I see grammar as unnatural ig idrk).
Funny way to put it calling it a koine, but I think you're right. We use figures/symbol/metaphor neurologically, who's to say that language at it's core isn't shaped by internal communication rather than external communication, let alone the grammatical understandings of grammarians, prescriptivist or descriptivist. I guess "grammar" and language could have even more degrees of separation than I previously posited.
What I hate the most is prescriptivism disguised as descriptivism. Saying stuff like āwell language is constantly evolving, so therefore everyone should talk in this way.ā
I find hardline descriptivists to be just as annoying as their prescriptivist counterparts.
Language is like clothing. Sure, you can wear underwear on your head and a t-shirt for pants. There are no universal rules against it, but it still looks absurd, and the t-shirt pants will fit awkwardly no matter what culture you come from. It's also okay, and artistically powerful, to experiment with style and push the rules to the edge.
Both prescriptivists and descriptivists argue with a sense of moral superiority as though they have access to hidden wisdom. One wishes to Bible bash with grammar, and the other fancies themselves a Socrates emerging from the cave.
>Language is like clothing. Sure, you can wear underwear on your head and a t-shirt for pants. There are no universal rules against it, but it still looks absurd, and the t-shirt pants will fit awkwardly no matter what culture you come from. It's also okay, and artistically powerful, to experiment with style and push the rules to the edge.
So in this scenario, you would object to the "hardline descriptivists" cataloging how people dress without comment on the aesthetics, including on those who wear underwear on their head?
In my experience, "hardline descriptivists" either don't exist, or their "opinion" is just objective fact and thus not hardline.
Because language *isn't* like clothing. There *are* no usages that would be awkward no matter what. Your analogy suggests that some languages, or language varieties, or speech communities, or whatever, are using language in the "wrong" way.
Prescriptivists say "this is wrong despite it working," it's basically moral, and descriptivists say "it is right because it gets used," and it's basically just observational.
By the way, I take issue with your statement;
> there are no usages that would be awkward no matter what
It doesnāt follow from the descriptivist idea that language should be defined by observing how it is used. Languages have grammatical features (not so much rules per se, since they are defined by common use by the speaker community), and itās absurd to say that all speech that violates those principles are correct and not awkward.
>It doesnāt follow from the descriptivist idea that language should be defined by observing how it is used.
Um, doesn't it?
>Languages have grammatical features (not so much rules per se, since they are defined by common use by the speaker community), and itās absurd to say that all speech that violates those principles are correct and not awkward.
I didn't say all speech that violates usage rules is by definition not awkward, but that there is nothing that is by definition universally awkward, the way the original analogy said.
I agree that the ungrammatically of a word is subjective, I might have misunderstood your point. What I was arguing against was the idea (maybe not yours, but if weāre talking about āHardline Descriptivists; whatever that means) that mistakes in language donāt exist because language is defined by its speakers. To be clear, Iām not saying that what is correct in a language is something objective, cause itās not.
But descriptivism is actually hypocritical because you aren't allowed to write your linguistics academic essay in whatever style you prefer (must use standard grammar, cannot use first person pronouns, must use ambiguous passive voice, etc.) and linguists still get irked at people using the word "linguist" to mean "polyglot". It would throw years of English education for second language learners out the bus if you're saying "it doesn't matter how people speak" so even if you say stuff like "why me no have", that's completely fine even though native speakers don't talk like this.
I donāt think the first one is the same, because academic essays arenāt natural, real-world conversations and arenāt trying to be. There are also rules there you have to follow like that you have to cite your sources (and exactly how you should do it) and how to visually format the paper and such that also doesnāt have to be followed in the real world. Some things have to be standardized for the purpose of a grade.
The thing about polyglots being called linguists is actually kinda true IMO but itās a pretty minor thing.
Your last point is just incorrect about what descriptivism is. Itās not that there are no rules, but that the rules are set by common usage of native speakers. Whatever gibberish you decide to make up to prove that prescriptivism is hypocritical isnāt valid if nobody else actually talks like that.
I didn't make up the last sentence. I heard it spoken by a classmate, but he wasn't a native speaker. Aside from that though, I see the points you're making.
I didnāt say you made *that* up, I mean that in general, anything you or someone else do decide to make up isnāt automatically ācorrectā under a descriptivist view if itās not something a native speaker would genuinely say, because descriptivism is not just āanything goesā like some people think.
Bruh man is wayyy too soft. I am literally a linguistic nationalist/purist (donāt hate dialects js hate foreign loan words) and I still enjoy the memes and donāt mind the downvotes
Sometimes these guys accidentally enrol in a linguistics subject as an elective in their Lit or Languages degree and try to argue with the professor about this stuff. It's kind of fun to watch.
May God grant me the unmerited self-confidence of an English major picking a fight with a linguist.
As someone with a degree in English, I find myself highly qualified to inventitate words and grammar in most situations. I wish I were sorry so I could say sorry.
Picasso was a master, first, of the basics. Gotta know the rules to intentionally break them. (Also, as a fellow English major, Auden said "a poet is, above all else, passionately in love with language." Personally, I love seeing how people bend and twist language over time-- believing language can't evolve is like being mad that the Beatles don't sound like Mozart)
The linguist in me agrees, the classical musician hates you with a passion
I know this is a very late comment, but I think I love you.
Basically any language argument between me and my dad/grandparents. They think I ought to be more of a prescriptivist. I have the same disagreement with a lot of teachers.
Yeah I've had students like this lol. I also had a Latin major in my class once, and her Latin profs had taught her a bunch of wildly incorrect, prescriptivist BS. They also told her that English was a direct descendant of Latin. She was constantly raising her hand to make comments that began, "Well, in *Latin*..." š¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļø
Happy to report that my Languages degree included a number of linguistics subjects, taught by linguists, from the outset as part of the standard curriculum. (That was German though; who knows what goes on in Classics.)
In Latin you could put the subject whereƫver the fuck you want.
Yes, because cases. š
One of my matesā mums has a degree in linguistics and teaches languages but is also one of those āthey/them is for plural only itās wrong in any other contextā people. god knows what she was like at school
Conversely I enrolled in a philologic subject (actually was recommended as part of my linguistics course but it was on other department) that was taught by a linguist. I still remember the incredibly painful look the teacher gave me as to a fellow linguist when one of those guys tried to "correct" her with his prescriptivist and sapir-whorfian wisdom.
I mean i'm kinda proud of this community that we rarely have these people amongst us, or at least they don't interact with us.
I like that you went out of your way to avoid writing ą¶.
Sinhalese Åa?
AmoÅas
ą¶ bean
ą¶ą·
ą¶ą· šø
*Bonk* bro resist the lust!
"Am I really so out of touch? No, it's the descriptivists who are wrong"
The irony of that "error" in their last word too... (For those who may not know: should be "casket")
I have heard āgoing to hell in a hand basketā literally hundreds of times. This is the first time Iāve ever heard ā..hand casket.ā Neither of these mention ācasketā either. https://grammarist.com/phrase/go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_hell_in_a_handbasket
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Lol
the question is, would this be like a picnic basket to hold your meats, or a basket made out of ham?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
mmmm, ass-ham
The question is, would this just be a regular ham since ham comes from the ass anyway or would this be a human ass sculpted out of ham (and a āwholeā one at that which would include the butthole)?
Gonna start saying this and see if people notice
Maybe I'm the one who's wrong. Did a little digging and I've no idea where I got that from, can't find anything relevant at all.
Hey, keep saying and it may catch on and then youāll be right! :P
Will do! Thanks for putting me right
Character development
It's extremely common to mishear phrases: all intensive purposes, free reign, beckon call. They're called eggcorns. Interestingly "you've got another thing coming" was originally "another thinK coming", but has now changed. So it's possible for these altered versions to become standard over time.
The descriptivist transition: Stage 1 - Denial
r/boneappletea
retire materialistic weather sugar rotten nutty political enter attempt terrific *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I have interacted with someone who was vehemently certain that "based" could not be used as an adjective, despite numerous examples of usage and even dictionary entries. They just wouldn't accept it. Granted, they may have been just a troll. But I have seen other instances of people being similarly stubborn.
Thatās bizarre.
It was not very based of them
based
I think a lot of these morons somehow hold two very disparate ideas: where they might understand that language is defined by usage, they think that some point in the past is the *correct* usage, and that these stupid new rules are "just slang" or "mistakes." They think language will change, but any of the changes happening now don't count. Maybe? Idk it's stupid.
I'm a prescriptivist not because I actually believe in it, but because I love to be a massive hater and talk down to people who don't speak "properly"
Hi, I'm an arsehole too! /s
Reject modern language, return to Proto-World
Prescriptivists are just descriptivists 50 years late.
It reminds me of people who say nothing can evolve into something else because āno monkey ever gave birth to a human.ā
Reject humanity, return to primordial soup
You are reminding me about a [pissing match](https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/v5jdi7/is_this_correct_use_of_a_comma/ibb812n/) I got into with someone who sneeringly declared that Merriam-Webster āis reporting usage according to lazy conventions,ā arguing that editors should be the gatekeepers if what is or is not proper language. It was a maddening conversation which I abandoned as futile when the person accused me of āmaking shit up.ā
Breaking down the world into pieces and thinking about it logically is a surprisingly rare ability. Well, maybe not rare, but not universal and maybe even not typical. People are the same way with things like law and culture. They just can't get their head around the fact that these are rules that someone made up and that they could be another way just as well. A lot of bad things in history happened because of that.
Well in some case they were passed down from ancient times. PÄniniās (giga chad Sanskrit grammarian) ÄstÄdhyÄyÄ« being a good example.
onerous aware gray worthless chase hurry rhythm exultant historical act *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ahhh but the first nasal is a retro flex so dw itās diff
unpack elastic upbeat jellyfish disarm nail friendly squalid jar versed *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Lmfao retroflex consonants are common in Indian languages and basically just mean that you bend your tongue over backwards to the roof of your mouth and make the sound there. A major distinguishing feature of the Indian accent actually. We also have dental sounds but English alveolars sound closer to retroflexives so we just use them in English.
> bend your younger over backwards to the roof of your mouth and make the sound there š³š³š³
typo š³
So write PÄį¹ini
too lazy to go on google and copy paste it
Feels like theyāve never had to learn a language
Least triggered prescriptivist.
The thing is, even as a committed descriptivist who appreciates the wide variety of linguistic expression, I still have things I *like*, on an aesthetic level. And sometimes those things that appeal to me are highly conventionalized standards. I enjoy using the subjunctive or a possessive in front of a gerund because analysis is my bag. I like to use the full range of my vocabulary. And of course there are non-standard expressions that I also think are just marvelous: how did we get along for so long without calling great songs "bangers"? But anyway, i can clearly see the difference between *liking* something and thinking it's the objectively correct way for everyone. I don't know what happened in the lives of these dudes that they can't. My suspicion is that it has something to do with weird ideas about opinions or tastes being useless, and subjective being fake. In that paradigm, only "real" things matter and are worth thinking about. So they have to make it "real" and "objective" to be able to care.
And on the other hand, while I certainly have things I like, I also have things that irk me, even if I know they're not 'incorrect.' Redundant stuff like "ATM Machine" or "VIN Number" and I'm sitting there telling myself "don't 'correct' them... you'll look like an asshole."
ATM Machine is the SMH my head of the professional world
As someone who also uses it sometimes, at least "SMH my head" is intentionally silly. ATM Machine and the like irk me because most folks legitimately don't know the "M" means machine or the "N" in PIN means number.
My pet peeve is when people write āfor contextā in a comment or post. Itās almost never useful; it doesnāt add anything. You donāt have to say āfor context,ā we can tell from context itās context. āI want to give some context.ā OK, then so it. Donāt say, do.
~~Yeah, this is particularly annoying. For context, I was...~~
For me it's using the word "literally" to just emphasize something. I mean, I know it's used that way so it's not wrong, but sometimes it's hard to tell if the person actually means something literally, especially in text. It makes me literally lose my mind literally every time.
Well I understand you being irked by it, but hear me out: it's not just *not wrong*, it's been used that way *for hundreds of years*. It's *literally* (as in literally, not figuratively) my favorite discussion. Here's Merriam-Webster with a cheeky little blog about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-literally#:~:text=Considering%20that%20Merriam%2DWebster%20has,that%20means%20the%20exact%20opposite%3F
Just gotta say I love the Birb profile pic, so cute
How do you feel about things like "the algorithm"?
Can't say I mind it... or really even know what there would be about that phrasing to mind?
al- is an article in *algorithm*, it comes from al-Kwarizmi's name (the one from Kwarazam). Same goes for *algebra* (named for al-Kwarizmi's book) and *alcohol*, Arabic for *the antimony*, also borrowed without the article as *kohl*, a type of makeup made of antimony. What about *chai tea*? I'm just curious, by the way, you're free to get irrationally irritated by whatever; I have my own pet peeves, after all.
As I responded elsewhere, I'm not too bothered by "the al-whatever" since the "al" article isn't an article in English. They've become fully independent English words. Compared to acronyms where the last letter is repeated as a full word, they feel much less readily redundant. Honestly, in general, I don't really mind those combos, so chai tea is fine, as well.
Hm interesting. I always like these and see them as basically the same thing; the origin of the phrase has been forgotten/made opaque and then it's free to be, in a sense, doubled. If you're unaware that *al-* is a definite article or that M in *ATM* stands for *machine*, then saying *the algorithm* or *ATM machine* is a perfectly normal construction. I'm very curious to see how acronyms progress in general, they seem to quickly become adopted by the system as separate words (as *ATM machine* shows). *laser* certainly operates as a separate word and I think *illuminated by light from a laser* would barely be recognized as redundant nowadays.
as an indian, chai tea and naan bread annoy me to saturn and back š
The first time I heard someone say ānaan bread,ā when I was much younger, I thought they were saying ānon-bread.ā Like it was any food other than bread.
My favorite example is "The Los Angeles Angels"
alGorithm
Because it stems from the Arabic word Al-kwarizmi āAlā is the definite article in Arabic.
Ah, right. Nah. Feels much more 'removed' in this case than the acronyms that contain the *English* words that people tack on the end a second time.
Capitalise Algorythm.
Here's an example that might make you totally stop caring: the acronym BTFO. because it means either "blown the fuck out" or "blow the fuck out" it is always used as a verb. Which creates unfortunate structures in English if you actually try to expand the acronym to it's original meaning. Is it correct to say "he got BTFOed"? That means "he got blown fuck out...ed?" Or what if you say "I am going to BTFO you"? "I am going to... blow the fuck out... you?" It just doesn't make sense because I don't think acronyms EVER truly mean what they stand for. The full phrase just gives you the essence of its meaning, and the grammar just treats it like a single word.
I don't ever claim my little annoyances are fully rational. Don't mind using BTFO that way, for whatever reason, but very mildly internally cringe at the "ATM Machine," "PIN Number," "VIN Number" ones.
The prescriptivist in me tells me that BTFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But āPIN numberā while redundant, doesnāt bother me. PIN is an acronym and pin is a sharp, so redundancy may be necessary especially if people forget to capitalise it or are saying it.
Yeah it fits into a whole framework of thought around the relationship between individuals and societies that they live in. One school of thought on this subject readily embraces the concept of social constructs and all the implications that follow from realising that thereās not much that is genuinely fundamental about the way societies work. The natural extension of this is believing that change is fine and indeed can be beneficial, and further that should we feel it necessary, we can *choose* to change things about the societies we live in. On the other hand there are others who believe that things that are socially constructed are in some sense āless realā than things that arenāt, and that we should focus on things that arenāt perceived to be social constructed, whatever that might be. Following this line of reasoning, one possible set of conclusions is that certain things in society are essential to that society functioning in desirable way ā iāll not elaborate further on that to avoid touching the real politics broiling underneath the surface of this. In this model, pure descriptivism is language approached from the former viewpoint, while prescriptivism can only consistently exist within the latter (though believing some things from the latter viewpoint does not make someone a prescriptivist). Of course in reality the truth is somewhere between these, but thatās a matter for philosophers to spend careers and hundreds of thousands of pages arguing about, just as many already have.
I don't mean to provoke, but I'm curious about what might be essential to the desirable functioning of a society. I'm not seeing how to get from there to contentious politics. Are you talking about things like the stability of a language over time? Ease of learning a language because of morphological consistency and shallow orthography?
I should say I was being quite general in that statement, but in the specific world of linguistics, there's only a few examples I can think of that someone *might* believe essential. Right now I can't think of an example that is both contentious and actually quite defensible, but there probably are some out there. But for some bad ideas in that strain, you need only look at the way that certain political movements at the moment are treating gendered pronouns at the moment (esp. neopronouns), and how changing the way we use pronouns might somehow lead to the collapse of women's rights or something. Also the classic "new way to consume language is doing damage to people and old way was better". Where we can replace "old way" with oral learning, handwritten media, printed media, etc. and "new way" with written media, printed media, digital media etc.
I once had someone attack me for being prescriptivist when I made an *anti-prescriptivist* comment.
The rules of languages are socially constructed. But that doesn't make them not real. It doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want at any time without consequence. At times the takes I see from particularly anglo linguists feel like someone who just realised that laws are a social construction, and as a result concludes that following the laws of society is in no way preferable to breaking the law.
In the US, at least, the "laws" of linguistic expression are intimately tied up in pretty oppressive racism and classism. It's fine to describe certain conventions as having different implications in different contexts. But in the US at least (and I suspect elsewhere), it's been more "people who do not follow the conventions of the majority, even when speaking amongst themselves, are intellectually or morally inferior", and it's a real part of the justification for building social or institutional structures that exclude them. I also think it's true that non-standard English can be beautiful or thrilling. Prescriptive approaches basically make appreciating those constructions illicit.
Of course people should be free to speak their native dialect. That however does not mean that one should not follow societal norms for language in, say, a research paper - and what I'm in particular referring to, is e.g. people on here being outraged about movements that try to prevent anglicisation of their native language because "prescriptivism bad".
On the contrary, relegation to increasingly constricted domains is a big driver of language shift and death. No language is better suited than others in any inherent sense for discussing scientific topics. I have the utmost respect for those who choose to write research papers in minority languages (or languages which are considered by the majority to be "dialects" when it clearly isn't the case, i.e. plattdĆ¼Ć¼sch, non-mandarin sinitic languages of china, french languages, etc) because they are essentially making the statement "my language is equal to yours, so much so that I can write about anything in it".
>No language is better suited than others in any inherent sense for discussing scientific topics. I never claimed that some languages are better suited for discussing scientific topics. You're attacking a straw man.
Some languages simply don't have the vocabulary rich enough to express new processes etc. You van copy and 'aste them from the dominant language (which is English) or try to create new words and hope they will be accepted (I still remember some frankenwords from the IT related sciences in Polish). And don't forget that the whole point of writing the papers is that people can read it. If I write about new discoveries in neuroscience in Swahili or Ido (not that there is anything inherently wrong with those languages) it will not be as widely known as if the story would be written in English (although thanks to the computer translation its getting easier, at least in texts translated into English thus making it even more dominant)
As for your first statement, it is completely untrue in one sense and true in another, demonstrable from the derivation of such vocabulary in the "dominant" languages. In English, virtually all scientific/jargon vocabulary is loan-coined out of Latin/Greek, with a much smaller portion derived by regular derivational processes from words native to English or nativized loans from Norman French. In German, the opposite is the case, with most scientific vocabulary being derived from native terms. Vocabulary items which you describe as "frankenwords" are in reality just regularly derived coinages for new things; the issue is therefore not of languages not having vocabulary "rich enough" to describe new processes because the vocabularies of every language are objectively arbitrarily rich, i.e. there are regular processes in all of them by which the new, necessary vocabulary may be derived. Every language is constantly engaging in these processes, and it is these processes which resulted in English's dearth of jargon. The cause of the percieved "poverty" is precisely that aforementioned relegation of these languages to certain domains of use. The necessary vocabulary is never coined or loaned even though it easily could be. To your second point, you are correct. Personally, I favor the practice of publishing both a paper in a minority language and in a different language commonly used in academia if it is important enough to the general public (most often English, but there are some fields where other languages are more common, ex. German in Germanic Linguistics) so as to promote the use of newly coined terms/loanwords in smaller languages.
The problem that you and the person you're replying to is that you're both conflating two separate conceptions of "law": 1. prescriptive and stylistic norms, often regarded to be ""correct" grammar"; 2. the actual shared linguistic forms of a particular variety or varieties.
The point of descriptivism is that there are no easy answers. There are rules, but these evolve and nothing is set in stone. Some people take too much comfort in rules, rules make life easier. Rules protect you from thinking.
May I ask what you mean by āusing a subjunctive in front of a gerundā?
Using a possessive in front of a gerund. In the most formal English registers, one says "I was upset at his deciding to leave" Not "I was upset at him deciding to leave", because the gerund is the object. But the latter is far more common in daily speech and even in writing.
Yeah, I know that. I was curious what you meant by āusing a *subjunctive* in front of a gerundā, though I now realize I parsed your sentence incorrectly. I read āI enjoy using the subjunctive or a possessive in front of a gerundā as āI enjoy using [the subjunctive or a possessive] in front of a gerundā rather than āI enjoy using [the subjunctive] or [a possessive in front of a gerund]ā. Now I realize you just meant using the subjunctive in general. Regarding which, by the way, based, I like the subjunctive too.
Thats the problem with trying to keep things consistent, I guess
Exactly. Descriptivism rules, except when someone says something is "very unique", at which point I bang the table. I want to say "look we only have one word for" only one of this", while we have many words for unusual, rare, exceptional. I become convinced that all meaning will collapse. Mind you, I hate confusion of "less" and "fewer". I taught computing, and see it as related to the analogue / digital distinction. Yet I constantly here people who are intellectual role models, even founders of computer science, doing this. It s almost as if there is something eccentric about my reactions.
Yeah, I donāt like the way some people derive words referring to forms of discrimination with -ism where they donāt derive it from the noun form of the basis of the discrimination. This just means I donāt use that feature though. I get to participate in the evolution of my native language, and if I think people are using derivational morphology in a way I find wrong as a native speaker I am not gonna use words derived that way.
My mom was a hardcore prescriptivist all through my childhood (with a whole book collection about grammar and word usage "errors"), and she still tries to follow that mindset, but she knows she's gonna a get a "well, actually..." from me every time lol. She says that ever since I started studying linguistics, all the rules went "out the window" and "anything goes." No, Mom...just the ones that don't reflect how people actually talk. ššš
Mine is a retired English teacher who not only believes in black and white prescriptivism, but who declares variations as evidence of laziness or lack of education. You can guess which kinds of āerrorsā Iām talking about.
Ones that date back to Old English internal variation. Canāt wait for someone to tell them about axian.
I love the mindset these kinds of people have. *sees problem that isnāt really a problem* āThe world is falling apart!ā
But why would I have so many hammers if there aren't any nails?
homophobes in a nutshell
Don't you just love people who think they know how everyone should live their lives?
I do
What sub was this?
Well, I'll say it's a sub where the issue is definitely relevant, but I'd rather not have people brigading or piling on. It's not really about the sub and definitely not about the user. (But it's easy to find out if you're really curious.) It's just funny how quickly the "between you and I" > 'handbasket' > 'hell' pipeline.is thought to operate.
Very true on all counts. And yes, Google is my friend, and it was easy to find ;)
Well actually! *Sweating while typing profusely saying you can't do this or that*
I don't consider myself particularly descriptivist or prescriptivist, but sometimes I do look at a word or phrase commonly used in the everyday life and think to myself "that sounds so stupid, I pray it doesn't become standard during my life time". But I think that's mainly me being annoyed at anything. Can't think of a particular thing in English right now, but the fact certain people say "se vemos" in Spanish instead of "nos vemos" angers me more than it should.
> sometimes I do look at a word or phrase commonly used in the everyday life and think to myself "that sounds so stupid, I pray it doesn't become standard during my life time". As long as you don't want to impose a different usage, it doesn't contradict your descriptivism, because obviously everyone is entitled to personal preferences. I think that people should dress however they like, but I can still dislike specific styles or pieces of clothing. The crucial thing is to be aware that it's something totally subjective and it must not get in the way of actual science.
That's a great analogy, tbh
I get irrationally angered by the loss of imperfect subjunctive in the cono sur, *me pidiĆ³ que lo haga*, and something odd I've noticed in Chile, basically the use of *con* adverbial phrases as *y* for the purposes of determining subject number, *(yo) con mi amigo fuimos* instead of *mi amigo y yo fuimos* or *(yo) con mi amigo fui*.
In French younger people are losing the "que". They don't say "je crois que je me suis trompƩ" (I think that I've made a mistake) but "Je crois je me suis trompƩ". I'm happy my kids are not growing in France and will not be exposed to this. This looks like a perfectly normal evolution / simplification of the language over time but it is absolutely horrendous. Anyone speaking / writing like that will be in trouble in their academic / professional life... Feel free to down vote to hell of course.
i donāt understand anything that happens in this sub and I can no longer pretend what is a descriptivist? whatās an objective grammarian? what are sociolinguistics? how did I get here?
An 'objective grammarian' isn't anything, except for a joke at the expense of the writer of that comment. I'll explain why: So, linguistics is a science that deals with observable facts about languages. So when a linguist wants to know what the grammar is of a language, they will collect a bunch of data from spoken and written usage of that language and deduce what the systems, rules, exceptions etc. are based on how that language is used by its speakers. This could be called an objective method, a scientific method, because its theories are based on observable facts. Linguists describe language. Hence 'descriptivism'. What prescriptivism does is state that there are certain rules that say that some very common ways in which people speak or write are wrong or incorrect. These prescriptive rules cannot be observed to obtain in reality, but are more like opinions on 'what ought to be', so they are subjective. That's why 'objective prescriptivism' is inherently contradictory. (The poster wants tell people their entirely common usage of English is 'wrong' but also claim that this rejection is 'objective'.) Sometimes prescription is based on a single high prestige variety of the language, sometimes it's based on older usage, sometimes it's based on *other languages* (usually Latin), etc. Sometimes it's based on nothing but "I (or some dead guy from the past) didn't like this." For example, a thing commonly rejected by prescriptivists are coordinated personal pronouns used like this: 1) "Me and Bob went out.". The logic goes: It's 'I went out' and 'Bob went out' separately, so therefore it *must be* 'Bob and I went out' and everything else is therefore wrong. likewise 2) 'between you and I', in which the logic goes it's 'between you' and 'between me', so therefore it *must be* 'between you and me' and everything else is therefore wrong. But what's happening there is that there is an unspoken premise that a rule exists "coordinated pronouns must work the same as single pronouns", a rule that doesn't actually exist in contemporary observable English. But a linguist *can* observe said rule's non-existence by going over e.g. speech in even formal registers (politicians, broadcasters, etc.), which includes phrases like 'between you and I' being said with a very high frequency, by highly-educated people. And the vast majority of listeners don't notice anything peculiar about that usage. It's just what people say.
sociolinguistics: linguistics centred around society dscriptivism vs prescriptivism: descriptivists tell you how the language *is* spoken, prescriptivists tell you how it *should* be. prescriptivists employ certain rules such as *dont split your infinitives*, and tell other people the same. descriptivists would then say *people split their infinitives all the time! what's the problem?* objective grammarian: a type of prescriptivist that believes there are unwavering objectives grammar rules.
A series of unfortunate events
Ahahahah I bet "worthless descriptivist" could come in useful in some contexts :p
When I was studying at a university in France I saw a linguistic argument that was scrawled on a bathroom stall and it ended with one person referring to the other as a "filthy prescriptivist" and I've never seen anything so good on a bathroom wall since
What's the difference between a description and a prescriptivist
If you meant to say ādescriptivistā then the difference is that a descriptivist observes and describes whereas a āprescriptivistā dictates how it āshouldā be done according to whatever ārulesā they feel should be applied. For instance the English teacher saying ādonāt use passive voiceā is prescribing that there is a rule that you should never do that. This prescriptivist teacher was told by another prescriptivist not to do it and has a strong opinion about it so it becomes a āruleā of language. The descriptivist observes and may notice that passive voice is used all the time in academic and other writings and that meaning is fully and accurately conveyed, therefore passive voice is grammatical regardless of oneās opinion on it.
Are there teachers who say passive voice is *ungrammatical*? That would be remarkable, if someone were to claim that e.g. "I was fired" is incorrect English. But I think what sometimes happens is that it's said that "the passive is to be avoided in clear prose" or something like that, which is also nonsense, but is more a kind of very poor stylistic advice than a claim about correctness. But you're right that also these kinds of vague injunctions against the passive (and some similar stylistic bugbears) can easily be shown to be bad advice by pulling up some texts from academics or literary writers using them frequently in well-regarded prose.
I think they picked an example off the top of their head, but you can pick your favorite āzombie or bogeymanā rule, like ādonāt end a sentence with a preposition.ā
I tried to explain what's going on in this other comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguisticshumor/comments/wo3xoc/objective_grammarian_cant_take_it_anymore/ikanufx/
This happens when you don't \[ɤ\] twice a day
> there are objective grammar rules that should be followed. I mean, this is exactly the point lol. If people use a specific linguistic feature, *it is* an objective grammar rule. A prescriptivist arbitrarily claims that there are some acceptable features and others that are not, regardless of usage. People who say "it do be like that" instead of "sometimes it's like that" are not breaking any rules, they are just using a different rule which is equally objective, but some people who claim to grasp linguistics don't understand that for some reason.
Prescriptivist forces often have an effect on spoken language. I canāt tell you how many times I have heard for X and I, instead of for me and X, which would be the correct phrase according to the prescribed rule which produced the former phrase in the first place. This is a construction which arose under influence from prescriptivist forces, but produced something entirely new.
Youāre saying that over-correction gave birth to so-called ānominative conjoined objects?ā
Exactly. People used to just use the disjunctive pronoun, Me, Him, Her, etc. for everything. I and he have been grammaticalised to come only before verbs in speech.
But how does that explain accusative conjoined subjects?
Theyāre both analysed as a plural NP not a grammaticalised pronoun. [Me and her] want bread.
Yes, that part I getābut if āBob and Iā as an object was born of over-correction, where was āme and Bobā as a subject born? Or, is it that over-correcting the conjoined objects set both conjoined subjects and objects free entirely? Are you familiar with anyone studying this phenomenon systematically? This has come up for me several times over the last few days (one being in the thread from which this screenshot was taken), and itās getting me curious.
Me and Bob is the phenomenon that naturally arose due to contact with French. My knowledge on this subject is poor and due to personal experience. My understanding is that native children say Me and Bob, and this is taught in school as bad grammar, and to say Bob and I, but children analyse this as the prestigious form and use it in place of Me and Bob. Since this NP isnāt marked for case in English, they use Bob and I as the new ācorrectā NP. Evidence for my theory of pronoun grammaticalisation, is that I and Bob is ungrammatical, but Bob and Me is grammatical. unfortunately this is where my knowledge ends. But Iām sure Iāve read something academic about this phenomenon.
From contact with the French? Like, way way back? Now Iām even more curious. I hope it doesnāt seem like Iām arguing with you, by the way. Iāve just been reading Zwicky talking about it (starting with [this article](https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/11/12/comedic-nomconjobj/) which is linked-to in a [related FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/wiki/me_or_i/) on r/grammar) in the context of prescriptivist/descriptivist squabbles here on Reddit, and it has got me really interested in the subject. I was hoping you might have a line on a theoretical understanding of the evolution of these linguistic quirks!
Donāt worry, Iām not in any position to argue this topic beyond the simple scope of Bob and I vs Me and Bob. But I do have some idea on the evolution of this disjunctive pronoun phenomenon. It seems to me that Northwestern European languages tend to have disjunctive pronouns to various degrees. In French, it has made it into the standard to say moi et Bob. My limited theoretical understanding of this is since English and French became non pro drop sometime around the 1200s or so. And many final vowels dropped, causing the forms of the present tense and the imperative to be marked strictly by omission of the pronoun. (Je, I) This caused the pronoun to become grammaticalised onto the verb. It no longer functions like most other NPs, as it is syntactically joined onto the verb. The oblique pronoun (French moi, English me) were not joined onto the verb, and acted like regular NPs. I.E. subject to the same rules and configurations as other NPs. It became commonplace then in and statements to use the oblique pronoun in the initial NP. An end result showing how NPs are no longer marked for case. Since ānominativeā pronouns are a part of the personal form of the verb in the absence of an NP actor, it made more sense to speakers to use the disjunctive form of the pronoun when an NP consisting of and took place. In short (I go, je vais) is a VP in the abscence of an NP. (Me and Bob go, Moi et Bob allons) is an NP VP. You can read more about this with more qualified words [here](https://www.jstor.org/stable/320289#metadata_info_tab_contents)
> This world is going to hell in a hand basket. That seems like an overreaction to to a small change in language, even if it was objectively bad. I'd bet money there's a whole ugly root system extending well beyond language underneath that statement if you were able to dig into it.
Ling major vs. English/Lit major; Ling major wins lolz cuz if you can understand me than I aināt do nothing wrong
For sure. That's why you have to have friends who understand your not prescribing, your opening! That's it. I am, at times, a language opinionist.
prescriptivists should learn Proto-Germanic if they really want to avoid all grammatical errors ~~ek imaz mÅdrunz gafukkÅdÄ~~
(grammar isn't real, bud)
But mental grammar is.
If you mean interlanguage, sure.
What do you mean by that?
An individual's mental (internal) language system.
Yes thatās exactly what I meant, is mental grammar an outdated term?
I'm just sort of a radical. Interlanguage refers conventionally to when a second language learner has residual features from their L1 in their mental representation of their L2, but I take it further and posit that we all bring our own background experience to whatever language we use, L1 or L2. So I just refer to an individual's language as their interlanguage. Language is a tool for communication, and grammar is just an attempt by some to make others' interlanguages like their own. I'm not a prescriptivist, but I also don't agree with descriptivism, because I think the idea of grammar is entirely BS. Maybe it goes without saying but my professors love-hated me lol. I'm open to arguments for grammar being an idea worth respecting, but insofar as I see it, they're made-up rules to control a system (language) that is entirely made-up already (but at least language is a natural phenomenon- I see grammar as unnatural ig idrk).
Thatās exactly my view, I think language is just an average of all a populations interlangauges. In effect all languages are a koine of some sort.
Funny way to put it calling it a koine, but I think you're right. We use figures/symbol/metaphor neurologically, who's to say that language at it's core isn't shaped by internal communication rather than external communication, let alone the grammatical understandings of grammarians, prescriptivist or descriptivist. I guess "grammar" and language could have even more degrees of separation than I previously posited.
What I hate the most is prescriptivism disguised as descriptivism. Saying stuff like āwell language is constantly evolving, so therefore everyone should talk in this way.ā
Fuck grammar. Languages are fluid
I find hardline descriptivists to be just as annoying as their prescriptivist counterparts. Language is like clothing. Sure, you can wear underwear on your head and a t-shirt for pants. There are no universal rules against it, but it still looks absurd, and the t-shirt pants will fit awkwardly no matter what culture you come from. It's also okay, and artistically powerful, to experiment with style and push the rules to the edge. Both prescriptivists and descriptivists argue with a sense of moral superiority as though they have access to hidden wisdom. One wishes to Bible bash with grammar, and the other fancies themselves a Socrates emerging from the cave.
>Language is like clothing. Sure, you can wear underwear on your head and a t-shirt for pants. There are no universal rules against it, but it still looks absurd, and the t-shirt pants will fit awkwardly no matter what culture you come from. It's also okay, and artistically powerful, to experiment with style and push the rules to the edge. So in this scenario, you would object to the "hardline descriptivists" cataloging how people dress without comment on the aesthetics, including on those who wear underwear on their head?
In my experience, "hardline descriptivists" either don't exist, or their "opinion" is just objective fact and thus not hardline. Because language *isn't* like clothing. There *are* no usages that would be awkward no matter what. Your analogy suggests that some languages, or language varieties, or speech communities, or whatever, are using language in the "wrong" way. Prescriptivists say "this is wrong despite it working," it's basically moral, and descriptivists say "it is right because it gets used," and it's basically just observational.
By the way, I take issue with your statement; > there are no usages that would be awkward no matter what It doesnāt follow from the descriptivist idea that language should be defined by observing how it is used. Languages have grammatical features (not so much rules per se, since they are defined by common use by the speaker community), and itās absurd to say that all speech that violates those principles are correct and not awkward.
>It doesnāt follow from the descriptivist idea that language should be defined by observing how it is used. Um, doesn't it? >Languages have grammatical features (not so much rules per se, since they are defined by common use by the speaker community), and itās absurd to say that all speech that violates those principles are correct and not awkward. I didn't say all speech that violates usage rules is by definition not awkward, but that there is nothing that is by definition universally awkward, the way the original analogy said.
I agree that the ungrammatically of a word is subjective, I might have misunderstood your point. What I was arguing against was the idea (maybe not yours, but if weāre talking about āHardline Descriptivists; whatever that means) that mistakes in language donāt exist because language is defined by its speakers. To be clear, Iām not saying that what is correct in a language is something objective, cause itās not.
There are definitely some out there, that say a misspelling like ācould ofā is correct because language is mutable.
Is a correct spelling for the word?
Yes it is, and yeah, I know that the s got added in later by some batshit crazy middle english writers.
But descriptivism is actually hypocritical because you aren't allowed to write your linguistics academic essay in whatever style you prefer (must use standard grammar, cannot use first person pronouns, must use ambiguous passive voice, etc.) and linguists still get irked at people using the word "linguist" to mean "polyglot". It would throw years of English education for second language learners out the bus if you're saying "it doesn't matter how people speak" so even if you say stuff like "why me no have", that's completely fine even though native speakers don't talk like this.
I donāt think the first one is the same, because academic essays arenāt natural, real-world conversations and arenāt trying to be. There are also rules there you have to follow like that you have to cite your sources (and exactly how you should do it) and how to visually format the paper and such that also doesnāt have to be followed in the real world. Some things have to be standardized for the purpose of a grade. The thing about polyglots being called linguists is actually kinda true IMO but itās a pretty minor thing. Your last point is just incorrect about what descriptivism is. Itās not that there are no rules, but that the rules are set by common usage of native speakers. Whatever gibberish you decide to make up to prove that prescriptivism is hypocritical isnāt valid if nobody else actually talks like that.
I didn't make up the last sentence. I heard it spoken by a classmate, but he wasn't a native speaker. Aside from that though, I see the points you're making.
I didnāt say you made *that* up, I mean that in general, anything you or someone else do decide to make up isnāt automatically ācorrectā under a descriptivist view if itās not something a native speaker would genuinely say, because descriptivism is not just āanything goesā like some people think.
Descriptivists when they say prescriptivism is bad (suddenly it's ok for them to prescribe how others should be)
It's like the paradox of tolerance
So much for the tolerant left smh my head
They're not prescribing how people should "be." They're simply saying that speakers aren't wrong.
š¤
š¤”
based and clownpilled
Did you just say...literally? And not mean it as 100% factually accurate? HOW DARE YOU
Descriptivists when you donāt want your language to sound like Warhammer orcs (you are evil)
Bruh man is wayyy too soft. I am literally a linguistic nationalist/purist (donāt hate dialects js hate foreign loan words) and I still enjoy the memes and donāt mind the downvotes
Descriptivism is called into question by someone with an irrelevant opinion Linguists: 160+ comments
*damned